Bill Maher does it again!
Daily Archives: November 7, 2010
Salon: This week in crazy: George W. Bush
Bush told us this week that he does care. Not about the dead and neglected of New Orleans. He cares about people accusing him of not caring…
Apparently the worst moment of his presidency — which included 9/11 — was getting slighted by Kanye West?
George W. Bush cared a great deal about one particular black person: Kanye West.
From his recent interview with Matt Lauer, on the occasion of the publication of Bush’s new book:
MATT LAUER: You remember what he said?
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Yes, I do. He called me a racist.
MATT LAUER: Well, what he said was, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: That’s — “he’s a racist.” And I didn’t appreciate it then. I don’t appreciate it now. It’s one thing to say, “I don’t appreciate the way he’s handled his business.” It’s another thing to say, “This man’s a racist.” I resent it, it’s not true, and it was one of the most disgusting moments in my Presidency.
MATT LAUER: This from the book. “Five years later I can barely write those words without feeling disgust.” You go on. “I faced a lot of criticism as President. I didn’t like hearing people claim that I lied about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction or cut taxes to benefit the rich. But the suggestion that I was racist because of the response to Katrina represented an all time low.”
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Yeah. I still feel that way as you read those words. I felt ‘em when I heard ‘em, felt ‘em when I wrote ‘em and I felt ‘em when I’m listening to ‘em.
MATT LAUER: You say you told Laura at the time it was the worst moment of your Presidency?
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Yes. My record was strong I felt when it came to race relations and giving people a chance. And — it was a disgusting moment.
Related Articles
- Bush Says the Worst Moment of His Presidency Involved Kanye West [Video] (gawker.com)
- George W. Bush Calls Kanye West Telethon Insult ‘Disgusting’ (omg.yahoo.com)
- George Bush Vs. Kanye West (perezhilton.com)
- George W. Bush Calls Kanye West Remark “Disgusting” (gossipcop.com)
- Kanye West Responds to George W. Bush “Racist” Comment (Video) (sugarslam.com)
- UDPATE: George W. Bush Calls Kanye West Telethon Insult ‘Disgusting’; Rapper Responds (omg.yahoo.com)
Filed under George Bush
Bloomberg: ‘THEY CAN’T READ’
Bloomberg: Congress ‘Can’t Read’ And Some Members Don’t Know What, Or Where China Is
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Saturday that some newly elected members of Congress “can’t read” and don’t know what or where China is.
Bloomberg delivered his stinging assessment of Washington’s newcomers during an interview with The Wall Street Journal.
“If you look at the U.S., you look at who we’re electing to Congress, to the Senate–they can’t read,” he said. “I’ll bet you a bunch of these people don’t have passports.”
The three-term, billionaire mayor warned against a trade war with China — something both major parties found politically helpful in last Tuesday’s election — and suggested that America assess its policies for answers:
“I think in America, we’ve got to stop blaming the Chinese and blaming everybody else and take a look at ourselves,” he said.
Last month, The New York Times reported that at least 29 candidates on both sides of the aisle ran ads critical of China and opponents who would support policies that help foreign workers–not Americans.
In one of its last acts before the midterm elections, Congress passed legislation retaliating against China, contending that the nation is undervaluing its currency.
Time‘s Zachary Karabell believes Americans are wrong. Continue reading…
Filed under Trade Deficit, U.S. Currency, United States Congress
Glenn Beck Compares The President To P.Diddy
This is the second time in as many days that Glenn Beck has suggested that President Obama might be assassinated while in India and other eastern countries. His first rant didn’t quite touch on the word “assassination” but this rant on his radio program leaves no holds barred.
Sorting out the crazies, indeed…
Based on his insulting rant last year, we already know how little Glenn Beck thinks of India. But, his latest screed about President Obama’s upcoming trip to India goes even further. In a long tirade, Glenn Beck worried that “Muslim nut jobs” who think Obama is a “sellout” Muslim might try to assassinate him in India.
And, tooting that racial dog whistle that Beck wears around his neck, he also compared President Obama to P.Diddy arriving with his “thugs.” From Glenn Beck’s November 4 radio show (emphasis added):
Glenn Beck: Is India not a hot bed for Islamic radicalism?
Mike Baker: I wouldn’t call it that. I would say it’s not an unfriendly environment for a variety of people who may not have our best interest at heart. How diplomatic am I being right there?
Beck: I’m not saying the government of India or the Indian people, but those forces are there that are hostile to India which are hostile to our interests
Baker: Sure, exactly.
Beck: The extremist world would love something to happen to the president of the United States in India. Would it not set the world on fire?
Baker: It wouldn’t have to be a direct harm to the president. It could be the disruption of the trip. It could be an operation, you know, planned during the course of his visit. Anything like that creates the profile they’re looking for.
Beck: A bomb going off near the president or near his entourage even would be a huge message.
Baker: It shows a win for them and it shows their ability to operate. Now the Indian Service, you can argue that the current Obama Administration has somewhat ignored the relationship with the Indian government during the two years so far, and certainly the Indian government certainly feels that way, but one of the good things about, you know, the work in the intelligence field and in security is regardless of who’s in power and regardless of what the administration is, there tend s to be a constant relationship between say, for instance, the CIA and its counterpart and a place like India. You just get the job done. You keep working and there’s a lot of work that goes on before this visit that never gets on the radar screen, and that work gets done and quite honestly, maintaining the security of the president or anybody else oftentimes is more reliant on that work, the work that you never see. It’s not the armored vehicles. It’s not the Secret Service standing There it’s not the warships. It’s all that collection and all of the maintenance of the liaison contacts, studying the actionable intelligence we’re picking up and the public doesn’t see that.
Beck: For somebody who lived some place where nobody knew who you were, if you have to get in the mind of the Indian people how does it appear to India, to the average person, when a president comes and he takes 34 warships to your country, 3,000 entourage, helicopters, jets, takes the biggest, you know, the most prestigious hotel and takes all of it over and disrupts, closes, holds portions of the gateway of India and people are losing their jobs. They’re not going to be able to feed their family. This is according to the India Times. How can I lose this business? They’re putting me in crisis. How does this appear? Is this P. Diddy arriving with 40 thugs?
P.Diddy? Really, Glenn Beck?
Related Articles
- Glenn Beck Is Concerned For Obama’s Safety On India Trip (mediaite.com)
- Chris Matthews: “Don’t Compare Any Human Being To Glenn Beck” (mediaite.com)
- Glenn Beck Ratings Tumble vs. Last October (tvbythenumbers.com)
- Glenn Beck’s Health Problems: Actually a Spiritual ‘Transcendence’ [Video] (gawker.com)
- Rupert Murdoch Trashes Bill O’Reilly, Praises Glenn Beck In Interview (huffingtonpost.com)
Filed under Glenn Beck, Glenn Beck Delusions, Glenn Beck's Innuendos
Peggy Noonan: Sarah Palin A ‘Nincompoop’ For Reagan Reduction
Peggy Noonan finally says something I agree with…
Conservative columnist and former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan doesn’t like people demeaning the Gipper’s legacy, not even Sarah Palin, and not even if she’s only talking about the former president’s Hollywood career.
She writes in her latest column of a recent incident in which Sarah Palin attempted to explain away a Karl Rove criticism over her “reality show” by drawing parallels to former president Ronald Reagan’s silver screen career, including his roles in movies such as “Bedtimes for Bonzo, bozo or something”:
Excuse me, but this was ignorant even for Mrs. Palin. Reagan people quietly flipped their lids, but I’ll voice their consternation to make a larger point. Ronald Reagan was an artist who willed himself into leadership as president of a major American labor union (Screen Actors Guild, seven terms, 1947-59.) He led that union successfully through major upheavals (the Hollywood communist wars, labor-management struggles); discovered and honed his ability to speak persuasively by talking to workers on the line at General Electric for eight years; was elected to and completed two full terms as governor of California; challenged and almost unseated an incumbent president of his own party; and went on to popularize modern conservative political philosophy without the help of a conservative infrastructure. Then he was elected president.
“The point is not ‘He was a great man and you are a nincompoop,’ though that is true,” Noonan continues. “The point is that Reagan’s career is a guide, not only for the tea party but for all in politics. He brought his fully mature, fully seasoned self into politics with him. He wasn’t in search of a life when he ran for office, and he wasn’t in search of fame; he’d already lived a life, he was already well known, he’d accomplished things in the world.”
Though Noonan’s piece is not simply a jab at Palin, but rather a larger message about the real political significance of one’s actions and accomplishments, as well as the necessity to “earn your way into politics,” it’s also worth noting that Noonan has never shied away from writing confrontational columns about the former Alaska Governor.
From Palin’s coming out party until her decision to step down as Governor of the Frontier State, Noonan has made it clear that she doesn’t jive with the “mama grizzly” brand of politics.
Related Articles
- Peggy Noonan: Sarah Palin A ‘Nincompoop’ For Reagan Reduction (capitolhillblue.com)
- Reagan Speech Writer Peggy Noonan Calls Palin a “Nincompoop” (themoderatevoice.com)
- Peggy Noonan Calls Sarah Palin “A Nincompoop” (alan.com)
- Peggy Noonan’s Appropriate Rebuke of Sarah Palin (socyberty.com)
- Palin is Not Reagan (politicalwire.com)
- 2010: The Maturity Election? (outsidethebeltway.com)
- As Karl Turns … (andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com)
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Filed under Sarah Palin
If Democrats Had The Cajones…
WriteChic Press – h/t Meesheemey
If Democrats had [cajones]…
Before the 112th Congress convenes, the Senate of the 111th would pass the 400 bills sent to them by the industrious House…if Democrats had balls.
The Senate fucks were voted in to work, to legislate for their term, but you know those sissy baby ninnies will lay down and die. Because that’s what Democrats do.
Republicans would vote in their bills. Republicans act on what they believe.
Sure. They’re wrong and lean heavily towards the batshit crazy end of the intellectual spectrum:
- There have been more jobs created under Obama in 2 years than during the entire Bush administration. (Graph)
- Democrats consistently preside over job creation. (Graph)
- Republicans consistently are responsible for record deficits. (Graph)
- Tax cuts (especially for the rich) do not create jobs (Source)
Republican heads would explode if they were capable of comprehending this.
But Republicans have the courage of their convictions….
…except when it comes to actually fighting a war themselves (Think chickenhawks, the narcissists who believe they’re too smart to die, when they’re really just too cowardly.)
They’re loud and proud.
Related Articles
- Obama to GOP: Let’s extend middle-class tax cuts (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
- Obama asks GOP to work on tax cuts (salon.com)
- Obama talks of need for compromise with GOP (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
- Obama talks of need for compromise with GOP (sfgate.com)
- Obama Open To Tax Cut Compromise (truthdig.com)
- “Obama invites Republicans and Democrats to White House” and related posts (politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com)
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Filed under U.S. Politics
Pelosi’s Triumph
Slate - By William Saletan
Democrats didn’t lose the battle of 2010. They won it.
Democrats have lost the House, and health care is getting the blame. Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana, a retiring Democrat, says his party “overreached by focusing on health care rather than job creation” and by spending $1 trillion on “a major entitlement expansion.” Sen. John McCain’s economic adviser agrees. Pundits say the health care bill killed President Obama’s approval ratings, cost congressional Democrats their jobs, and snuffed out the legacy of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “Virtually every House Democrat from a swing district who took a gamble by voting for the health law made a bad political bet,” says the New York Times. The Los Angeles Times laments that “the measure of a leader in Washington isn’t how much gets done, it’s who holds power in the end. On that scale, Pelosi failed.”
I’m not buying the autopsy or the obituary. In the national exit poll, voters were split on health care. Unemployment is at nearly 10 percent. Democrats lost a lot of seats that were never really theirs, and those who voted against the bill lost at a higher rate than did those who voted for it. But if health care did cost the party its majority, so what? The bill was more important than the election.
I realize that sounds crazy. We’ve become so obsessed with who wins or loses in politics that we’ve forgotten what the winning and losing are about. Partisans fixate on punishing their enemies in the next campaign. Reporters, in the name of objectivity, refuse to judge anything but the Election Day score card. Politicians rationalize their self-preservation by imagining themselves as dynasty builders. They think this is the big picture.
They’re wrong. The big picture isn’t about winning or keeping power. It’s about using it. I’ve made this argument before, but David Frum, the former speechwriter to President Bush, has made it better. In March, when Democrats secured enough votes to pass the bill, he castigated fellow conservatives who looked forward to punishing Pelosi and President Obama “with a big win in the November 2010 elections.” Frum observed:
Legislative majorities come and go. This healthcare bill is forever. A win in November is very poor compensation for this debacle now. … No illusions please: This bill will not be repealed. Even if Republicans scored a 1994 style landslide in November, how many votes could we muster to re-open the “doughnut hole” and charge seniors more for prescription drugs? How many votes to re-allow insurers to rescind policies when they discover a pre-existing condition? How many votes to banish 25 year olds from their parents’ insurance coverage?
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Filed under Nancy Pelosi
